By Zoë Goldsborough
It was a dark, gloomy and depressing night when 25 UCR students braved the cold to cycle all the way to Vlissingen. Their incentive? To go to the premiere of the newest Marvel film: Deadpool. The trip was organized by Film Society, and yours truly was there as their representative. I personally thought the movie was absolutely amazing, and more than worth cycling through the pitch-black night for. I spend two hours giggling, an effect movies not often have on me.
The plot of Deadpool is quite straightforward: A guy, Wade Wilson, works as a hitman, gets cancer, does not want to die, lets creepy guys in suits experiment on him and voilà, acquires superpowers. With his new super status, Wade is pretty much invincible, since all damaged tissues regenerate. One downside: he does not look that super attractive anymore. To quote his best friend “you look like an avocado had sex with an slightly older avocado.” Wade is now determined to get his good looks back, so kills a few more bad people, while being extremely sassy. He has the equipment and the sidekicks, but will his mission succeed?
When cycling back, I already said it to some of my friends: good movies do not always have to be deep or complex. Sometimes, all it takes for a movie to be good is for it to be entertaining. In my opinion, if you can sit through 2 hours of something without being bored for one second, it’s more than worth your money and time. That was the case with Deadpool. It was a perfect mix of witty jokes, badass action scenes and the fourth-wall breaking humor that makes Deadpool such a beloved character. His entire mission was not even that admirable; in the end he is trying nothing more than to be pretty again, but you root for him nonetheless. Ryan Reynolds is the perfect Deadpool, when watching interviews with him I sometimes wonder if he is not actually Deadpool, since the two seem to be exactly the same personality wise. Ryan Reynolds himself seems to agree, since he simply kept the famous Deadpool suit once shooting was over.
Another thing that was amazing about Deadpool was the movie’s promotion. The marketing team was just like Deadpool himself: hilarious, a little bit on the edge sometimes and incredibly fast with their witty remarks. They respond to their fans in no time. A good example is when they made a poster with a skull emoji, a poop emoji and an L. Obviously, this was supposed to make people think ‘Deadpool’, but it soon led to a surge of posts saying ‘Skullpoopl’. Instead of sulking that their stunt went wrong, the marketing team simply went with it, and quickly made posters saying ‘Skullpoopl’. Another, in my opinion, great move was the way they portrayed Deadpool on posters. They have been accused of ‘oversexualizing’ the character and Ryan Reynolds, but I perceive it more as a clever jab at the so normally accepted over-sexualization of women in mainstream media and movies. We think it is completely normal when a half-naked woman is shown on a movie poster, which makes it even more ridiculous that people criticize the poster you see here. We see a man in a full body suit, nothing inappropriate and nothing super sexual except for a nice pun and funny pose. The advertisement portrays Deadpool itself and the movie exactly the way they turn out to be: witty, sarcastic and a bit offensive at times. And isn’t that what advertisement should do? Accurately portray the thing they are trying to sell? In the case of Deadpool, they are spot on. Therefore, if you happen to think the poster is funny or the trailer hilarious, I wholeheartedly recommend you to go see Deadpool.
Zoë Goldsborough, Class of 2017, is a Science major, from Leeuwarden, the Netherlands.
